During this visit, you should work with one or more groups of students if you haven't already, and observe your teacher doing the same. For this journal entry, describe your teacher's teaching style. What type of relationships with students does he or she nurture in his or her classes? How do students perceive that power is distributed in the classes? Does this vary within or across the different classes the teacher has? Cite examples from your observations to support your inferences. Remember to reflect on what style of teaching you will gravitate toward and the how you want to be perceived by your students.
Observe a laboratory activity or base your answer on past visits. How does your CT conduct a typical laboratory activity? How does he or she open the activity and organize student groups? How do students learn what they're expected to do during the period? Reflect on your reading about inquiry and your experience with the NECAP inquiry task. How did the laboratory activity you observe prepare students for the type of activities that might show up on the NECAP in the future? What inquiry elements would you strengthen? What science practices do you want to stress when you're teaching?
Mr. Bruneau's teaching style is, in almost all facets, what I would call the "happy medium". He's never extremely strict with students, but he is far from laissez-faire. If he feels the need to reprimand students who are out of control, he never does it in front of the class and instead brings the student out in the hallway to talk to them one-on-one and resolve the situation. One particular student in advisory has a lot of energy, and one day he got a bit out of control. Mr. Bruneau took him out into the hallway where he talked to him, and the student was not causing a problem anymore when he returned. His relationships with all his students are extremely friendly. He has no power struggles, and students never give him any kind of backtalk. He lets students speak their minds. The atmosphere in his classroom is almost always one of mutual respect. This seems like an extremely open and healthy way to run a classroom.
Mr Bruneau typically lets students make up their own groups when conducting labs or group activities. If the procedure is complex, he might take a moment to go over some of the more confusing parts before they begin. As he has mostly advanced classes, most of the students are ok with reading and interpreting the nitty-gritty points of instructions on their own. Honing the skill of following a set of directions and interpreting tasks correctly is of course a skill that students will need on NECAP, and in their lives after high school.
His classrooom is arranged into six groups of tables, so there are usually six or less groups during all activities. When students are working on a lab, he usually takes at least some time to circulate around the room to observe and ask questions. I've taken his lead in this respect. Some of the time I've enjoyed the most in Mr. Bruneau's class is when I get to go around the room to talk to students, help them out, answer questions, show them different strategies for approaching a problem, and generally getting to know them. It's this process that is helping me to build rapport with the students, and I believe that because of this my student teaching experience in the spring will be much more enjoyable.
Mr. Bruneau's teaching style is, in almost all facets, what I would call the "happy medium". He's never extremely strict with students, but he is far from laissez-faire. If he feels the need to reprimand students who are out of control, he never does it in front of the class and instead brings the student out in the hallway to talk to them one-on-one and resolve the situation. One particular student in advisory has a lot of energy, and one day he got a bit out of control. Mr. Bruneau took him out into the hallway where he talked to him, and the student was not causing a problem anymore when he returned. His relationships with all his students are extremely friendly. He has no power struggles, and students never give him any kind of backtalk. He lets students speak their minds. The atmosphere in his classroom is almost always one of mutual respect. This seems like an extremely open and healthy way to run a classroom.
Mr Bruneau typically lets students make up their own groups when conducting labs or group activities. If the procedure is complex, he might take a moment to go over some of the more confusing parts before they begin. As he has mostly advanced classes, most of the students are ok with reading and interpreting the nitty-gritty points of instructions on their own. Honing the skill of following a set of directions and interpreting tasks correctly is of course a skill that students will need on NECAP, and in their lives after high school.
His classrooom is arranged into six groups of tables, so there are usually six or less groups during all activities. When students are working on a lab, he usually takes at least some time to circulate around the room to observe and ask questions. I've taken his lead in this respect. Some of the time I've enjoyed the most in Mr. Bruneau's class is when I get to go around the room to talk to students, help them out, answer questions, show them different strategies for approaching a problem, and generally getting to know them. It's this process that is helping me to build rapport with the students, and I believe that because of this my student teaching experience in the spring will be much more enjoyable.